The Role of Video in Content Marketing: 87 Experts Share Their Predictions for 2018

Video is dominating the content marketing landscape these days. According to Ahrefs, thousands of people search for terms “video marketing”, “make a video”, “video ads on Facebook” monthly, and the numbers are growing higher with time. But is it really reshaping the content marketing landscape? What should we expect in 2018 in terms of video marketing?

We asked 87 experts to share their predictions for the state of video marketing in 2018. Based on their replies, there are 9 major video marketing trends that we should expect in the upcoming year. Read on to find out what the experts said.

Trend 1. Video is becoming a must for any content strategy

Video will soon account for the large majority of internet consumer traffic. You cannot assume anymore that people will start their search for your goods and services and Google and you cannot assume they want to consume written (short or long form) content anymore.

Adel de Meyer

New media specialist, brand ambassador, author and mentor

There’s little doubt that video marketing is the current flavor of the month, with reports suggesting that more than half of online marketers plan to make greater use of the format over the coming year. What are the reasons behind this huge level of buzz?

1) Video marketing is successful. Research suggest that over 80 percent of those who’ve tried video say it shows an appreciable return. That’s an arresting statistic in the often-nebulous and hard-to-measure field of marketing.

2) There’s an immense potential audience. Around 45 percent of internet users watch an hour or more of video each day, and Facebook alone generates approximately 8 billion views on a daily basis. That’s a massive market businesses are tapping into and will do so even more in 2018.

3) Video opens fresh channels of exposure. YouTube is the most obvious way of publishing your efforts, but videos are also widely shared across social media. Get it right, and your message can spread to places that text or static images will never reach. According to YouTube, mobile video consumption grows by 100% every year.

4) Video can also connect with a different type of audience. Just as some people prefer to consume information by reading, others react more readily to visual messages. Video lets a marketer cover both bases. It is estimated that 92% of people who consume mobile videos share them with other people. This is a massive portion and is higher than the share rate of many other types of content out there.

5) Video is versatile. Desktop editing software means the same footage can be used to produce full-length videos, short clips for social media, or introductory teasers for email. Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019.

6) Video generates sales. Research by Google suggests nearly half of regular web users include video in their research when shopping online. Video is also still fresh, largely overcoming the problems of ad blindness and other obstacles to placing your message in front of jaded online audiences.

Source: HubSpot.7) Video lends a human touch to a company. Revealing the people behind the brand is becoming increasingly important in today’s faceless digital marketplace, where mega-brands are often met with distrust. Video marketing is an incredible way to create content that is personal and has a real impact on your audience. It has an incomparable ability to create emotion driven sales – and sales are always personal on some level.

There are solid reasons behind video marketing’s current popularity, and it’s unlikely that it will be vacating the scene anytime soon. While it’s not necessarily a perfect fit for every business, the wealth of opportunities it offers combined with its low barrier to entry means video is an option you can’t afford to overlook. Trends in 2018 will be the same as now just on a bigger scale!

Adel de Meyer is a new media specialist, brand ambassador, author and mentor with focused expertise in using Twitter and Instagram for business. She has a top-listed digital marketing blog and Adel is recognised as a leading Instagram and Twitter influencer on social media and business in Australia. She regularly writes articles and speaks at local events on influencer marketing, technology and social media solutions. She loves coffee and creative minds!

Andrea Fryrear

President and lead trainer of AgileSherpas

In the coming years, we’ll start seeing “good on camera” as another qualification for many content marketing roles. As video becomes a must-have piece of everyone’s content strategy, those who can contribute to multiple kinds of media will be in ever higher demand. From being comfortable to sharing quick live updates on social media to developing an eye for good filming locations at an in-person event, content pros will have to make video marketing part of their skill set.

Andrea Fryrear is the president and lead trainer of AgileSherpas, where she helps marketing teams get turn chaos into calm by applying Agile tools and practices. She’s also the author of Death of a Marketer and a sought-after international speaker.

Dr. Kay Green

The CEO/Senior Marketing Consultant of EDesign Consulting Ltd

In 2018, Businesses will embrace more than just video; they will embrace video marketing strategy…i.e. how to strategically market video to consumers.

In 2018, Video marketing will become a must-have job skill. Animoto conducted this year, surveying more than 1,000 professional marketers and 1,000 small- and medium-sized business owners, respondents said they view video marketing skills as a more desirable skill for their team in the next 12 months compared to email, design, and written marketing materials. (Animoto’s 2016 Social Video Forecast) Source: Animoto

In 2018, 50% of your content mixture should be text and video. You need to make the shift to what your consumers are on.

In 2018, Business video uploads to Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter will triple.

Dr. Kay Green is the CEO/Senior Marketing Consultant of EDesign Consulting Ltd (formally RKG Marketing Inc.). She earned a Doctorate of Business Administration in Marketing, and has completed PhD coursework in Leadership and Organization Change. She also holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing and Management, a Bachelor of Business Administration in Marketing, and an Associate of Arts in Marketing Management. She is affiliated with several prestigious universities and has instructed over 350 courses online. A popular speaker on Marketing and Business topics, Dr. Green is currently featured on Great Women Speakers, Great African-American Speakers, Marketing Experts, Black Experts, Guru.com and Savor the Success.

Georgi Todorov

Digital marketer

It is almost a cliché now to say we are in a fast-paced society, but the truth is our need for information to be delivered quickly and clearly will increase through 2018.

The introduction of autoplay on Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn has given rise to the preference of closed captions as people simply don’t want to use their time to plug in headphones so as to not disturb the people on the train, on the bus or in their workspace. 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound when, traditionally, audio quality (i.e. well-mixed sound, no glitches, hissing, humming or interference) has been arguably the most crucial aspect of what constitutes a good video.

Now this argument has been turned on its head, and with the resurgence of VR, it is logical to assume video marketing will, almost ironically, become primarily a visual experience once again. There will most likely be a need for two videos to be produced per piece of content marketing.

Firstly, video will become an intrinsic part of any page of any serious company/brand’s website, as the desire to spend time reading through several pages of information, bullet points, tables and self-promoting blog posts will decrease – these videos will be content rich as viewers are landing on websites in order to learn more.

As it stands, however, the most successful videos are ones that are shared, and with over half of all online browsing being carried out on a mobile device now, this will mean more video marketing optimized for mobile sharing – shorter, visually impacting product or service demos easily passed on through Whatsapp, Facebook or Twitter.

Georgi Todorov is a digital marketer. He’s the owner DigitalNovas and a partner at FortuneLords. His passion is to help beginners to start and grow a successful online business. Hit him up on Linkedin or Twitter @GeorgiTodorovBG anytime.

Jerome Perrin

Founder of Jay-Webmarketing.com

A forecast from Cisco showed that 80% of online content will be primarily made up of video by 2019. 2 years ago, this company noted that 70% of Internet traffic was composed of video content with the expectation of a fourfold growth by 2020.

Why such a trend?

Because video is the most persuasive form of content. Just think of all the times you went to the cinema and how often you cried by watching a film (something that is not even real!) – just because you were taken by a moving and effective scenario: by a story which took the total control of your brain and your emotions. Videos contain a higher intensity of emotion and a longer duration attention. More than words. And emotion and attention are the two most important elements of persuasion.

So, combined with impactful words, images can really make the difference.

For certain complex subjects, videos are even the most effective content marketing type for providing context, explanations, and contents. For making it simple. Get inspired by this exemplary video.

Videos don’t just grab the attention of your target audience. They get higher social engagement and lead to more conversions. 92% of mobile video consumers share videos with others. One example: 500 million people on Facebook watch videos every day. And video content is easy to consume. You may now ask following question: “why is this trend emerging only now”. Well, the art of filmmaking used to be accessible only to some happy few, until a recent period.

Things have changed. With the digital age and the emergence of revolutionary new technologies, everybody can now produce a good film. A scenario, a smartphone, a microphone … and here you go.

So, my answer to the initial question?

Well, in 2018 it will be massive 🙂 My advice? It will be very difficult to stand out from the crowd. So, be different. It’s the best chance to be seen.

Jerome Perrin is the founder of Jay-Webmarketing.com. He helps CEOs, business owners, and decision makers to grow their business with cutting-edge digital marketing strategies.

Louie Luc

Blogger, podcaster

By now, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that online video has been (and is) growing rapidly.

Video marketing stats explain why: videos attract 300% more traffic than any other kind of content, will soon account for the large majority of internet consumer traffic, get more conversions according to a high percentage of marketers and a research by eMarketer states that video ad spending is going to grow exponentially in next few years.

And, because viewers engage and attach on a much deeper level to messages or stories depicted on videos, they also have a higher level of shareability.

Even more “traditional” forms of content like blog posts or audio are turning to video: bloggers, affiliate and digital marketers are using videos to showcase their personality and who they are, create tutorials explaining how to use tool A or how to tackle digital marketing strategy B; podcasters are restructuring their editorial calendars in order to include video versions of their shows and much more.

Besides all of those exciting numbers, there are other behind-the-scenes movements that also prove my point: Facebook started to integrate video on their platform to try and compete with YouTube and Amazon has recently announced they are ready to do the same.

With that being said, the trend for 2018 and the coming years seems clear. Businesses will seize this “golden video opportunity” to differentiate their brands from their competitors; there will be more compelling, storytelling-like videos that businesses will use to grow their visibility, engagement with their customers and, ultimately, boost their sales.

Louie Luc likes to try out and experiment online business models and ideas, digital marketing strategies and growth hacks while publicly documenting his progress (including failures) on his blog and podcast.

Ronald Dod

The CEO of Visiture, an eCommerce Search Engine Marketing Agency

In the SEO industry, bounce rate is important. Video helps keep users on webpages longer which enables users to stay on longer and help that Google ranking signal. Back in the day, many people thought Video helped with SEO but didn’t know exactly. Now we do know because videos help users stay on the page longer sending a strong signal to Google this is a good page. This can work very well for eCommerce with product videos living on product pages. I think we will see a larger amount of budget spent on video content and being able to justify it into SEO benefits.

Ronald Dod is the CEO of Visiture, an eCommerce Search Engine Marketing Agency. Visiture focuses on helping eCommerce businesses connect to consumers searching for them online using engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Amazon.

Steve Chou

Runs the popular blog MyWifeQuitHerJob.com

I will not even run a Facebook top of funnel ad now unless it contains a compelling video. Video is so much more effective at conveying a product’s unique value proposition than just a photo. Going forward in 2018, I would expect to see the majority of marketers move to 100% video.

Steve Chou runs the popular blog MyWifeQuitHerJob.com where teaches others how to sell physical products online

Tim Hughes

Most influential social selling person in the world

Video is a must, you cannot assume anymore that people will start their search for your goods and services and Google and you cannot assume they want to consume written (short or long form) content anymore.

Tim Hughes is universally recognised as one of the world’s leading pioneers and exponents of Social Selling and he is currently ranked Number 1 as the most influential social selling person in the world.

Trend 2. Video will continue growing

Video consumption has been growing exponentially and will continue its incredible growth curve in 2018.

Michael Stelzner

Founder of Social Media Examiner

Video will play a huge role in social media marketing in 2018. Short-form video stories will become an important way for businesses to humanize their brands. Live video will help businesses develop more engaged communities. Video ads will also dominate.

Ben H. Rome

Multi-award winning marketing and game writer.

Video will continue to rise as a primary medium for content. With a focus on quality storytelling and short, pointed messaging, video marketing will force social media channels to further adapt their UI/UX in order to find the right balance of projected video and augmented messaging.

Video is on a razor’s edge, with the potential to simply overwhelm audiences with multi-channel noise – or enhance the audience with customized directed content at their fingertips.

Dom Wells

The owner of Humanproofdesigns.com

Video currently plays a huge role in our marketing strategy. We’ve found that the right kind of video can pay off with huge returns. It’s clear that our audience responds well to video content. However, we’ve also found that there is such a thing as a “wrong” video that actually hurt our marketing.

In 2018, video marketing will no doubt continue to grow at a fast rate. Apart from that though, video marketing strategies will become much more refined and will better connect with audiences.

More and more companies are creating video marketing content – the ones that succeed know exactly how to differentiate themselves from the pack, get their message across, and captivate their audience.

Dom Wells is the owner of Humanproofdesigns.com, a market leader in Done For You affiliate site services and training for beginners and experts alike.

Nirav Dave

CTO & Co-Founder @ Capsicum Mediaworks

If a picture is worth a thousand word, then a video is priceless,” this quote fully explains the impact video marketing can have on your business.

Videos, especially, Explainer videos help you create engaging content that gets you instantly connected with your customers. Moreover, with the ever-changing face of technology, customers today, would rather watch an explainer video at their leisure than read through a full-page content.

And the reason for its popularity is quite simple:

Videos are more easily accessible, thanks to the easy availability of WiFi and 4G connectivity.

It provides auditory and visual stimulation that precedes reading a text.

Lastly, it has more potential of going viral or being shared on social media than written content.

Furthermore, if you were to look at the latest digital marketing statistics, you will notice that the conversion rate through video marketing, is much higher than any other medium.
An informative video, not only creates more buzz and drive in more traffic but it also builds confidence in customers about your product or service and as such, this is one digital marketing trend that you need to invest in as it will only continue to grow in the coming years.

Nirav Dave is the CTO & Co-Founder at Capsicum Mediaworks, a Digital Agency based in Mumbai, India.

Frithjof Petscheleit

Digital media strategist

In my 7+ years in the content marketing space, I have seen expert predictions about the rise of video every year to the extend that it’s becoming a joke. The advancements in technology have given all of us the opportunity to consume and create high-quality video. 2017 is certainly the year of live video. As far as I see the next step will hopefully be used created content – comments by video for example. My hope for 2018 is a trend to 1:1 video: Videos created for one customer at a time and delivered in a friction-less way.

Frithjof Petscheleit is a digital media strategist, coach, community manager and CEO of BlueBird Business Consulting. Blogger, podcaster, content creator and teacher with a passion.

Jacob Warwick

The founder of ThinkWarwick Communications

Video marketing will continue to be on the rise in 2018, particularly as more social networks support the practice and more brands begin experimenting.

This will undoubtedly increase the amount of video marketing clutter or “noise” that marketers will need to navigate to find success.

As a result, organizations that concentrate on high-quality video creation, brand storytelling, and working with influential video content creators will begin to differentiate themselves from the masses and raise industry standards.

Jacob Warwick is the founder of ThinkWarwick Communications, a performance branding and marketing company that specializes in content marketing strategy and public relations for enterprise executives and growing organizations.

Steven Macdonald

An online marketer

This current trend will continue to dominate in the next 12-18 months and by 2019, 80% of all content consumed online will be through video (Source: Cisco Visual Networking Index). This means that instead of marketing through articles and blog posts, marketers’ will be shifting their content production from text to video in order to stay relevant and deliver value.

At SuperOffice, we’ve been shifting a lot of content from text to video in the last 12 months so we can collect data on how our audience responds to video content. We’ve used their response and the data to improve new video content, which has helped us grow from 0 views to now 110,000 views.

Julie Revelant

The owner of Revelant Writing, LLC

I think video marketing will continue to play a larger role in content marketing for all industries. Not only will brands produce how-to, product demos and customer case studies, but they’ll be paying closer attention to telling stories that captivate viewers and keep them engaged until the very last second. The focus will be on creating videos that are timely and relevant, foster loyalty and persuade consumers to take action.

Julie Revelant is the owner of Revelant Writing, LLC, an inbound consultancy that provides content marketing, copywriting and brand journalism services for the healthcare industry. Julie works with Fortune 500 healthcare companies, large corporations, hospitals and health insurance plans to create engaging content, close more deals and save time.

Pamela Hyatt

Content Marketing Specialist at FITT

It’s becoming easier and more important every day for brands to share video content. There’s a plethora of statistics out there to back up the growing demand and benefits of using video when it comes to both brand awareness and sales. So, going forward you will see more companies build capacity for video production and marketing in-house and integrating it into every form of communication. Press releases, product demos, culture building, brand stories, ad campaigns, events, testimonials – everything will have video components. Brands are becoming video content producers because it works. It’s become an essential tool in every marketer’s toolbox.

Katie King

MBA, is Director of Transformation at Digital Leadership Associates

Video marketing will continue its incredible growth curve well into 2018. Slow to adapt, LinkedIn has just become the last major social network to add a way for people to share videos natively. Having won an award for the best B2B Video campaign for Brit Pong, I know how important it is not to substitute creativity for relevance and results. 2018 will be the year of proper integrated strategic sales and marketing, with video, alongside AI embedded apps and analytics, playing a crucial role.

Katie King, MBA, is Director of Transformation at Digital Leadership Associates, and Founder of AI in FM and Zoodikers. She is recognised in the digital transformation space, having delivered two TEDx presentations and numerous international Keynotes. She is also a frequent commentator on BBC TV and radio.

Marcus Miller

Founder and MD at Bowler Hat

I wish I had a really exciting answer here but my gut is that we will just see more video. Video on sales pages. Live video streaming. 360 videos. VR video. Video on social platforms. We are all basically lazy and video makes it easier for us to be fed information so as data connections continue to improve video will continue to grow.

There are already studies showing how video can improve conversion rates. So, all it takes is a few enterprising folks in your industry to add video to their landing pages and you will have to play catch up.

People still want to work with people so video allows people to really get to know you in a way that even the very best sales copy could never achieve.

I don’t see that anything will change radically or overnight. Content will still come in many forms with written articles, podcasts and video – but video will see the fastest growth in 2018.

Marcus Miller is the SEO & PPC Consultant from Birmingham, UK. Founder and MD at Bowler Hat. Focused on helping small businesses generate big results from their digital marketing.

Mark Traphagen

Senior Director of Brand Evangelism

One practice that I think we will start seeing by 2018 from most content marketing leaders is what I call “video everywhere.” As video becomes more accessible and ubiquitous, consumers will more and more expect it to be an option for consuming any content anywhere. That means content producers need to be thinking beyond just video on social media or video on video networks (such as YouTube), and invest the resources to produce a video version of all of their content as at least an option for viewing the content. That means even written blog posts should have an embedded video version.

Mark Traphagen is Senior Director of Brand Evangelism for digital marketing agency Stone Temple. Rand Fishkin named Mark a top five social media expert. He is a contributor to publications such as the Moz Blog, Search Engine Land, and Marketing Land; and is also a regular speaker at major industry conferences.

Vinay Koshy

Digital marketing consultant

Video will continue to play a strong role in content marketing and will take up a larger portion of popular content formats that businesses will invest in.

In fact, Brian Halligan recommends that 50% of your content mix be video. With the rise of live streaming video and increasing use of video on social media channels there seems to be more of a progression in terms of setting expectations with users that video formats are the norm rather than the exception.

Vinay Koshy helps digital marketers and entrepreneurs rapidly grow their authority and traffic with one of a kind in depth content.

Trend 3. Social videos are only getting more and more popular

Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Twitter video: every major social platform now has an option to share videos with subscribers and followers. Social video is definitely on the rise at the moment and is only getting more popular in 2018.

Mari Smith

Premium Facebook Marketing Expert

Social video marketing will continue to rise and dominant in 2018. Savvy businesses and brands need to incorporate compelling short videos for storytelling to draw in their audiences and better engage them. Plus, we’ll really see an increase in the use of short (around 15 seconds) videos in square and portrait format. These types of videos are optimized for mobile viewing and are ideal for using in Facebook and Instagram video ad breaks.

In April this year, Facebook updated its creative guidelines with a recommendation that brands start swapping out 16:9 aspect ratio landscape video (typically used for television ads) with 1:1 ratio square video, ideal for mobile. Turns out people are 67 percent more likely to watch a square video to completion than they are to watch a horizontal one.

Short videos in landscape format are ideal for Facebook Live ad breaks. Given the fact Facebook is rolling out around a dozen original television quality shows at the end of this summer, we will see an increase in mid-roll ads site-wide. With its video app released earlier this year, Facebook is on a mission to snag ad dollars and viewers’ attention from the big leagues — broadcast television. TV advertising is a $70 billion a year industry and with the cord-cutters and mainstream television view time dropping, there’s a growing trend in digital television, a la YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and more. Facebook will soon start appearing on that leaderboard.
Brands need to get into position now with top quality, professional video content.

It’s a really exciting time right now for Facebook. It’s reminiscent of where YouTube was about eight years ago, or so. There is a relatively ground-floor opportunity for smart businesses to get to work creating their own ‘Facebook TV Channel’ and amassing millions of viewers.

Mari Smith is one of the world’s leading social media thought leaders, widely recognized for her Facebook marketing expertise. She is author of The New Relationship Marketing and coauthor of Facebook Marketing: An Hour A Day.

Andrew and Pete

Content marketing duo

Shows are the way forward. Cute little videos are great for one-off engagement but if you really want to grow and build an amazing community then you need to be creating shows with ongoing story lines and themes. The creators who are doing this already are the ones who are growing the quickest. Fast tracking this trend is Facebook Watch – a place for creators to build communities around shows.

Andrew and Pete are the fun content marketing duo who help solopreneurs and small businesses to create insanely shareable content that builds brands people love, through their membership community – ATOMIC.

Donna Moritz

The founder of the award-winning blog Socially Sorted

Brands will realise the importance of being responsive and mobilizing quickly to create quality social video content. This will mean that teams will create more in-house video and use tools that enable more members of their team to create social video quickly and easily.

Donna Moritz is the founder of the award-winning blog Socially Sorted in Queensland, Australia. She helps brands leverage the power of visual storytelling and content strategy in their business and is a keynote speaker in the marketing and tourism industries internationally.

Peg Fitzpatrick

An author, social media strategist, and popular blogger

Video is gaining in popularity on all social channels so I feel that it’s going to be a “must” not a choice for marketing projects. Social video is the best way that brand’s can tell their stories in a more entertaining and visual way. Mobile usage is on the rise and people love to watch videos on their smartphones. Staying top of mind is being in people’s hands as they surf the web looking for entertainment or information. Put video at the top of your social media plans for 2018.

Peg Fitzpatrick is an author, social media strategist, and popular blogger writing on her own website and across the web. Peg has spearheaded successful social-media campaigns for Adobe, Motorola, Audi, Google, and Virgin as well as having been a brand ambassador for Kimpton Hotels. Peg co-authored The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users with Guy Kawasaki. Guy teamed up with Peg as he believes she “is the best social-media person he’s ever met.”

Andrew Davis

Startup advisor

Like this year, video will play a huge role in our Marketing efforts. Facebook will launch a platform to rival YouTube and Netflix, Youtube will strike back with their move and I am sure Amazon and Apple will have something to say as well.

As Marketers, we will feel the pressure to create more videos and of a high quality. However, 4 areas we need to concentrate on are:
a) Telling stories with our videos
b) Making sure the right people see our videos
c) Getting the right people engaged and (digitally) talking about our videos
d) Getting people to take action once they have seen it.

Without a doubt, video will play the most important role in content marketing in 2018.

Andrew Davis shows start ups how to create a marketing strategy in a digital world through strategic training workshops.

Arman Assadi

The co-founder & CEO of ProjectEvo.org

Creating video that is mobile-first will be key. Content creation is only going to increase, and so will the battle for attention. This will actually create an opportunity for authentic, valuable, unique content to stand out.

Arman Assadi is the co-founder & CEO of ProjectEvo.org. Arman helps people uncover their unique craft and create self-directed lives at ArmanAssadi.com — the #1 resource for solopreneurs. He is a contempo philosopher, obsessive world traveler, former Googler, and soccer player.

Daniel Kingsley Daines-Hutt

Retargeting consultant

Complex question.
Everyone has different learning or consumption styles and prefers different media for different times. When we think of video in content marketing, it can be hard not to think of it as high volume, daily video YouTube channel type stuff. I think currently the system is slightly flawed. People produce at volume on YouTube because they are monetised by views, and more videos, of course, mean more views from the same audience.

But…

What about for businesses that want to use video as a content offering with a less is more approach? The major issue has been that although an audience enjoys it, you can’t always fully leverage it (Google couldn’t understand the content, just the meta data etc) and so you would potentially pay a hefty sum for content that would struggle to attract organic traffic… But this is the future we’re talking about. Almost any phone can film in high def and stream directly to your Facebook page to then be downloaded and added to your site 60 minutes later. We’re far more comfortable in front of the camera. Likewise, apps etx for editing are available even on mobile devices. Take into account that google is currently moving towards a new version of search and it starts to make you think…

Is video going to pull ahead?

The entire system is about to be changed- from how they deliver content to users based on previous interactions. Videos on mobile, sending people to other video content could well be the most effective approach. I know that video on mobile works fantastically. That being said, there will still always be the need for those who prefer the written word. You would need to make both… But as the first touch point in a mobile centric generation?

I can’t help but feel that your newsfeed will suddenly become video after video after status update after video… So get those soft lights and start upping your game now 🙂

Daniel Kingsley Daines-Hutt is a self confessed Retargeting Nerd. He teaches people the wonders of retargeting from basic sales to choice architecture and other cool stuff.

Jeff Leo Herrmann

B2B Showrunner and the Founder and President of Madison, Michigan and Market

I am extremely bullish on video marketing in 2018, yet the tyranny of choice reigns. I’m expecting somewhat limited growth, because… the number of platforms we have available to publish video content is both a blessing and a curse. So many marketers are frozen — or just ineffective — because they’re unsure of the best platform to use to house and distribute their content. YouTube, Facebook Live, Instagram, SnapChat are all great options, but if all are embraced the marketer will be diluted and ineffective. Those that pick one, and master it, will win.

Jeff Leo Herrmann is a B2B Showrunner and the Founder and President of Madison, Michigan and Market. We help B2B brand marketers evolve beyond basic lead generation strategies to build loyal audiences through the development of an owned media platform. We’re deeply concerned with the creative, financial and analytical decisions required to support your investment.

Neil Sheth

Online Entrepreneurs advisor

Video has always been one of the biggest areas for businesses to stand out online. That’s not changing in 2018. I do however expect the quality of videos to improve.

Just as all videos are expected to be HD now to keep users engaged, I expect more businesses using animation and motion graphics to make their videos pop online.

Video is also going to be huge on social media. The introduction of Stories on Instagram and an increase in user video content is strong validation. This is what creating quality content now looks like.

Neil Sheth helps Online Entrepreneurs grow their audience online by helping them to get found online and build relationships with customers. He has a FREE 3 Day SEO challenge to help you to get your content found in Google.

Peg Miller

VP of Marketing at Tax Guard

Video enables storytelling at scale. Often the CEO or product lead within a company can tell the story of the product vision better than anyone, but it’s obviously not scalable to have the CEO or product leader on every sales interaction. When companies use video to help expand their story, it’s as if the CEO can have a more personal interaction with every prospect or customer.

Peg Miller is the VP of Marketing at Tax Guard, a fintech company disrupting how commercial lenders conduct due diligence. She is also Co-Founder of the B2B Marketing Academy, where she writes, speaks and helps B2B marketers adopt modern marketing best practices. She has held executive roles at Kapost, Penton (Informa) and Gannett.

Rafi Chowdhury

The founder of Chowdhury’s Digital and co-founder of myCampusHacks

Just look at Facebook. They are doing everything they can to encourage more videos. They now allow and prompt users the option to turn all static photos into a simple slideshow and post it as a video rather than pictures.

People engage way more with videos than with just text or even picture. I would recommend turning your blog posts and infographics into videos. Look at how Quicksprout did this.

These videos are also amazing to share on social media.

At Chowdhury’s Digital, we even offer it as a service. We allow sponsored posts and infographics. I then personally make a video detailing the info within the guest post. It is very effective! 🙂

Rafi Chowdhury is the founder of Chowdhury’s Digital and co-founder of myCampusHacks. Examiner.com calls him the go-to guy for traffic generation. In his free time, Rafi is an advisor to the British Young Asian Entrepreneurs.

Shahnawaz Sadique

Affiliate marketer, product launcher

I see there is a huge scope in video marketing in 2018. We marketers are already using video as our main content for 2 years now. Day by day video marketing is improving. We can see tons of animations, light weight videos that are yet very powerful.

The only major trend I can see that now marketers want to create animated videos with a few clicks. Industry experts already figured that out and now we can see that many tools are available in the market to fulfill our video needs. Video with animated character and sales script can increase your revenue, conversion and sales for sure.

I have been using video as content or sales pitch for more than 2 years now. And my sign up, sales, conversion rates have increased drastically. By using videos you can easily connect with your viewer and warm him/her up to take action.

Shahnawaz Sadique is a affiliate marketer, product launcher and blogger since 2013. He is also very active to create income stream from niche sites.

Syed Irfan Ajmal

Serial entrepreneur, content marketer & PR consultant

Most, if not all, studies point to the increased adoption of video marketing in the coming months and years. HubSpot has suggested that 80% of web traffic will be comprised of Video by 2019, hence we may see more and more of video content.
For instance, we may see brands experimenting with more video formats such as explainer videos, showing off company culture, or the kind of excellent Whiteboard Friday videos that Rand Fishkin and their team put together.I may not be surprised if more companies start customizing the same video for different platforms. So for instance, the same 30 hour video may be put as it is on YouTube but, divided into 5-7 chunks/episodes for Facebook.
The fact that LinkedIn has started rolling out Video and may soon be launching Live Videos too is a great news; especially at least for some of those companies who didn’t find Facebook or other video platforms to be a sound investment.
I also think that we may get to see more companies moving from creating static infographic to video versions of them with more interesting and engaging data visualizations.

Syed Irfan Ajmal is a serial entrepreneur, content marketer & PR consultant, author, and international speaker. He has bylines in Forbes ME, the World Bank, Business.com, SEMrush, HuffPost and others. His blog has also been cited in Entrepreneur.com, The Next Web, Tech in Asia, etc. He has been speaking and conducted workshops in both Pakistan and Dubai (UAE) since 2013.

Trend 4. Virtual reality will start reshaping content marketing

A significant number of experts believe that virtual reality will enliven video in 2018. With many sicual platforms currently supporting 360-degree videos, this prediction seems quite probable.

Allen Gannett

CEO and founder of TrackMaven

Marketers used to treat video content creation like a High Art. But today, overly polished videos scream inauthenticity. “Shot on iPhone” footage is the new normal. In 2018, my fear is that VR-hype will distract brands from the major opportunity that lies in low-budget but highly authentic video content. Until VR truly makes the leap from irksome to immersive, I’d bet my budget on raw but real videos any day.

Allen Gannett is the CEO and founder of TrackMaven, the marketing analytics platform used by hundreds of the world’s best brands. Allen also serves as a General Partner at Acceleprise Ventures, where he invests in early-stage SaaS companies. Previously he was CEO of Splash Networks. Obsessed with Pumpkin Pie and Corgis, Allen lives in Washington, D.C., and once was a very pitiful runner-up on Wheel of Fortune.

Colin Klinkert

Online business owner, investor, marketer, and entrepreneur

A video, as Mark Robertson aptly puts it, is the swiss knife of internet marketing. It can be used all over the customer lifecycle.

The fact that videos can be used at every stage of customer lifecycle makes it an even more important communication medium. In 2017, content marketing has seen a high adoption of video content with elements of personalization in the form on podcasts and Facebook Live videos. And, with the involvement of technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), I expect this to go one step further in 2018.

The main reason behind this prediction is the fact that biggies like Google, Facebook (the two biggest content consumption platforms) and Snap Inc (the next big one to join the league) are heavily invested in AR and VR.

With AR and VR coming into the equation, we will see a massive shift in the way people consume content. Keep an eye on Snap Inc as they can be the one to lead this trend.

Colin Klinkert is a full-time online business owner, investor, marketer, and entrepreneur. He has felt 7 figure success from his online marketing ventures. Check him out at Serped and Platform.ly

Jonathan Aufray

Startup consultant, serial entrepreneur

Video marketing will become more and more important in 2018. We’ve already seen a switch the past few years, especially with the rise of live videos on platforms like Periscope or Facebook Live or even SnapChat. I believe Live Videos will become even more important in marketing, especially to build relationships and show the human touch of companies.
In a previous post, I said that 2017 was too early for VR (Virtual Reality). However, I believe VR will start to reshape the content marketing (And video marketing) landscape in 2018. 2017 was just for the first VR adopters but I think VR will start to go mainstream in 2018.

Jonathan Aufray is a traveler and serial entrepreneur who help startups and SMBs from all around the world grow. I help them through growth hacking, inbound marketing, fundraising and product development.

Jordan Kasteler

Freelance consultant, entrepreneur

Augmented reality and virtual reality will start manifest in our lives in many forms whether it’s embedded cameras or wearables. The new ASUS ZeonPhone is a great example of them using AR

Video marketing will continue to be more engaging, and a full 360 experience.

Jordan Kasteler is a freelance consultant, entrepreneur. Passionately innovating status quo. He has a history of entrepreneurship co-founding and serving positions in such companies as BlueGlass Interactive, an Internet marketing agency and SteelCast, a tech incubator housing several other self-started companies. Jordan is also an international conference speaker, blogger, and book author of A to Z: Social Media Marketing.

Kyle Bailey

I believe AI will grow in the space. I don’t think it will dominate in 2018, but it will grow. YouTube will remain the power broker in the online video world, I don’t think that’s a surprise to many. Marketers and small business owners should be hyper-focused on messaging as AI grows. It will be more important than ever.

Kyle Bailey lives and works in Austin, TX, while serving and consulting with clients across the nation in SEO, Content, Social and Sales Consulting. He blogs on frontburnermarketing.net, and speaks often in Austin and Dallas on the above topics. He belongs to the exclusive “Bearded Marketers Group” that he made up.

Neil Patel

The co-founder of Crazy Egg and Hello Bar

With so many people buying virtual reality headsets nowadays, I think it’ll be interesting to see how brands use 360-degree video formats to create immersive experiences. Facebook has even started building cameras specifically made for capturing 360-degree video, with plans for a product release before the end of 2017. For all the talk about the power of mobile-optimized full-screen takeover formats like Canvas ads, Instagram Stories and Snapchat videos, those are super powerful for sure – but nowhere nearly as powerful as 360, where the viewer chooses to disconnect from what’s really going on around them and instead explore and interact with a different place altogether. Coca-Cola did some cool things with YouTube in the early pilot stages of 360 a couple of years ago, but once the tech required to create these clips is available to everyone, I’m sure we’re going to see some really creative use cases.

Neil Patel is the co-founder of Crazy Egg and Hello Bar. He helps companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue.

Ricky Wolff

Field Marketing Coordinator

In 2018, video marketing will increase in efficiency. As marketing as a whole becomes more interactive, video marketing will naturally play a critical role in your content marketing strategy mix. What really will take off, is 360-degree videos. Many social platforms are currently supporting 360-degree videos and as more people are using virtual reality headsets such as the Oculus, it opens an opportunity for a different type of ads platform. Imagine someone is playing video’s on YouTube or playing games on a VR platform, showing 360-degree videos will be a great way to be innovative in content marketing. However, this is not limited to videos, you can also shoot 360-degree pictures.

Ricky Wolff is a Field Marketing Coordinator for Continental Europe in the IT Sector

Tom Bentley

Content marketing writer and editor

Augmented Reality (AR) will enliven video in 2018, but the companies that stand out will use the tech to deliver creative punch rather than glitz. Companies that can blend humor and pizazz—perhaps incorporating vintage footage of Salvador Dali, but put him behind the wheel of a Tesla while he’s watching one of his own movies on the car’s screen—will distinguish themselves from companies that merely use different packaging to push product. Maybe Apple can finally give Mark Twain the MacBook he deserves. Onscreen, at least.

Tom Bentley is a content marketing writer and editor, an essayist, and a fiction writer. He’s published hundreds of freelance pieces—ranging from first-person essays to travel pieces to more journalistic subjects—in newspapers, magazines, and online. He would like you to pour him a Manhattan right at five.

Zontee Hou

Founder & president or Media Volery

For 2018, I believe there are three major areas of growth and maturation. First, longer-form original video content on YouTube, Facebook and now Apple’s own platforms continue to expand and capture mindshare. These will be as important go-to sources of content for Millennials and Gen Z, competing with traditional television and streaming platforms like Hulu and Netflix.

Second, we’ve seen brands start to table with 360-degree video for the last year or so, but in 2018, I believe we’ll start seeing content producers get a stronger handle on how to best utilize this medium and turn it into engaging content that goes beyond novelty.

Third, short-form content such as Instagram Stories and Snapchat Stories is going to mature and become better integrated into brands’ campaigns. Beyond just featuring emojis and funny on-screen text, they will become part of the storytelling mechanisms for brands. We’re already seeing clever usage of these short videos with Snapchat influencers, and I think there’s a lot of room for brands to capitalize on the limited-time nature of this content.

Zontee Hou is the founder & president of Brooklyn-based consultancy Media Volery. Her 10+ years of work in the marketing industry has garnered multiple awards including a Forrester Groundswell Award. She teaches at Columbia University and CCNY, and she speaks at events around the U.S.

Trend 5. It is becoming easier than ever to make quality videos

More and more business owners see how cheap and effective video marketing is. With a vast majority of video making tools out there on the market, companies can now produce quality videos at speed and scale.

Adam White

The founder of SEOJet

I think the landscape of video marketing is already changing. As more and more business owners see how cheap and effective video marketing is versus PPC advertising, the trend will continue to grow. We are currently in the process of building out a video marketing campaign that we expect to beat out all other marketing channels within 3 months.

Adam White is the founder of SEOJet, backlink software that helps SEO’s build #1 ranked backlink profiles quickly. He has been an SEO professional for 15 years and even took two years off to write and direct a feature film.

Daniel Glickman

CMO, Roojoom Web Experiences, Inc.

Video creation platforms have reached a level of sophistication and maturity that allows marketers to create and distribute professional-quality videos with little effort. In 2018, we can expect video marketing to become a lot more popular, profitable, and personal. While our ability to connect video production to customer databases on one end, and to a distribution platform on the other end is currently limited to expensive enterprise services, the market is ripe for the addition of these features. The potential benefits of relevant and user-friendly video marketing, to both providers and customers, are obvious: Businesses will benefit from providing personalized videos that match specific stages of the buyer’s journey, and platforms will benefit from charging for added-value services, perhaps switching from a license-based subscription to a volume-based revenue model. Content counts now more than ever, and excellent video storytelling has already begun to overtake traditional text-based messaging models.

Dev

Founder of WPKube

In 2018, the role of video in content marketing will be bigger than ever. With trends leaning more towards native advertising, personalization of video content, and even influencer marketing, video content is going to either make or break your brand when it comes to increased conversions, higher site traffic, and more sales.

In addition, content marketers creating video content are going to need to focus more on the “why” rather than the “what” if they want to captivate audiences and drawn them in for more. People are looking for real reasons to get involved with your company. They are looking for a deeper meaning if you will. Great products, services, and content are all well and good, but why should someone care? If you can nail that in your video marketing, you are sure to be golden this upcoming year.

Jacob Cass

Runs the popular design blog, Just Creative

Traditionally, producing videos for advertising has been a costly and time consuming process but with the technology and services available today, it has become much more accessible for smaller businesses. Not only this, but faster internet speeds and computer processing power, means that more people can consume video media. With this in mind, video marketing is gaining fast momentum and should be added to your marketing mix as soon as possible for more brand engagement.

Jacob Cass is a prolific graphic designer who runs the popular design blog, Just Creative, which doubles as his award-winning graphic design & branding firm.

Joe Escobedo

The “Brand Builder” and ranked among the “Top 20 Content Marketers” worldwide

In addition to traditional corporate case study and interview videos, I’d like to see more companies encouraging their audience to develop videos on their behalf. For example, if you’re a beauty brand, you could create a video mashup of beauty tutorials created by the folks that use your products. Share the love by posting their videos on your owned channels. Do that and you’ve created lifelong fans of your brand!

Joe Escobedo is known as the “Brand Builder” and ranked among the “Top 20 Content Marketers” worldwide. Joe has helped countless organizations and executives transform from relative unknowns to superheroes online. He has also created and led successful digital marketing, branding and PR campaigns for everyone from startups to Fortune 500 firms. His articles in Forbes and the HuffPost have been read over 500,000 times. He’s also an award-winning speaker.

Scott Meis

VP of Marketing at Clipper Vacations

While recent trends have pushed for shorter, more concise video content to align with social algorithms and decreased attention span, I think we’ll continue to see brands swing the opposite direction with longer form documentary style filmmaking. As opposed to trying to chip away at a series of 5-6 second videos to quickly grab user attention during a scroll, smart brands will continue to invest time and effort to dig deep within their own company and customer base to surface stories that truly strike an emotional chord. Furthermore, brands will continue to double and triple the distribution dollars necessary to support proper distribution of their video content. This will come in the form of social ads, paid search, influencer promotion, video distribution platforms and for advanced brands, strategic media partnerships. Last year, I invested in creating a powerful mini-documentary called “This Is The Northwest” that highlights our whale watching service here in the Pacific Northwest. The video has largely been responsible for driving sales of this product up 20% in the past year alone with sold out boats nearly every day (200 capacity). Not only do customers love learning about the trip beforehand but the video served to spark internal empowerment and pride from our employees around what Clipper offers to locals and tourists for our whale watching service.

Scott Meis is the VP of Marketing at Clipper Vacations, a Pacific Northwest travel company located in Seattle, WA.

Stephen Twomey

Entrepreneur

Video marketing, especially as it relates to YouTube marketing will continue to become more advertising based. I was browsing for “web design” videos and sure enough a Wix.com ad popped up with Karlie Kloss. Advertisers are getting smarter and understanding the power of search intent and capitalizing on video marketing in a way that they never have before.

More users are comfortable producing their own professional quality videos, so the average consumer of this content is expecting a bit higher quality production value than even 2 or 3 years ago.

Establishing relationships with other influencers in your space will be important as “audience sharing” or guest vlogging has picked up speed in the last several years and has not showed any sign of slowing down.

To grow as a video marketer, provide value to your audience. Provide value to the person’s vlog that you are appearing on. Keep on giving and building your list. You will get value or “payback” if you are encouraging people to subscribe to your channel, including links to your content and occasionally offering your audience a way to buy something from you. Like Gary V states, “Jab Jab Jab Right Hook.

Stephen Twomey is an Entrepreneur. Family Man. I like to lift things up and put them down.

Stoney deGeyter

CEO of Pole Position Marketing

Video is quickly becoming the next big thing. Many platforms such as Facebook are pushing video, expecting it to be the primary method of communication on their social network. I do think video consumption will continue to increase, I also suspect that it will hit it’s zenith in 2018 or early 2019. At the point the interest level will die down and reach a point of normalcy.

Video marketing will no doubt be important to reach those who prefer video over content, however as marketers, we always have to remember that not everybody wants to take the time to watch a video, especially when scanning content is easier.

As marketers, we’ll need to make videos something special and worth taking the time to watch. If what you’re doing with video can be done with content, then the videos will fail to generate any kind of traction. Effective video marketing will require treating video not as an additional way to reach people with the same content, but as a way to get new content in front of a different audience.

Stoney deGeyter is the Author of The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!. He is also a speaker, teacher, husband, father, and CEO of Pole Position Marketing, a results-driven digital marketing agency which he established in 1998.

Dennis Seymour

SaaS entrepreneur

It depends on your target location and demographics but in general, the trend is definitely towards micro, showing native ads, heck, even having your own influencer team. On my current startup, SeriousMD we’re currently playing with short live tutorials, live videos, personal videos from the founder (which is currently just me) for our private group. Our market is a bit less engaging and not quite the outspoken type compared to a broader market, so letting them in, letting them be a part of what we’re doing and letting them know that they can be heard, that’s really a big deal. I can see it happening more as business gets more personal along. AI learning will definitely play a part with gathering data for what the videos can be about but I can’t see it quite handling the actual video content just yet.

Gary Bizzo

One of the Top 25 Small Business Accounts on Twitter

While I love video interviews and such, I think the best use of video will be explainer videos around 90 seconds. People ant short videos that provide a solution to a problem. I’m going to be pushing my YouTube channel more in 2018 as a way to offer short (1-2 Min) promos for my online courses and my two books.

Gary Bizzo is a global social media influencer with 500k+ followers. In 2017, Forbes said Bizzo as one of the Top 25 Small Business Accounts on Twitter, Top 200 Social Influencers in the World for 2017 by Forbes. He is a writer for Equities.com and is the author of “Social Media Rock Star – Social Media Marketing for Business” on Amazon.

Ian Moyse

Sales Director at Natterbox

Video Marketing needs to be used now, short sharp video content is the new mantra of the target customer. Attention spans are shorter and people view on the move – video needs to be clear and viewable with sound off – ie with text and imagery that supports non-sound watching, – Ian Moyse

Ian Moyse is Sales Director at Natterbox, sits on the Boards of FAST & Cloud Industry Forum, & is rated #1 Cloud Social influencer 2015-2017 (Onalytica. He is recognised as a leading cloud Blogger and was listed in the EMEA top 50 influencers in Data Centres, Cloud & Data 2017.

Joe Williams

SEO for Zen Optimise

I see more Garyvee type videos. Short, snappy and engaging. Businesses will become more daring in encouraging individual employees and/or founders to take a leading role in promoting the brand. And in doing so they will become the face that customers connect with, rather than just a faceless company. We’ve already seen a shift in selling through educational videos and I expect this to grow more and more in 2018.

Joe Williams is a London based SEO and digital marketing trainer for Zen Optimise.

Keith Keller

The Global Twitter Marketing Specialist

(1) What are your predictions for the state of video marketing in 2018?

There is no doubt that video will play an ever increasing role in content marketing moving forward. In fact, I am already looking past 2018 to 2020 where it is predicted that 80% of all content on the internet will be in the form of video.

I am calling this “The 802020 Rule” (#The802020Rule). With this in mind, 2018 will see more and more video creation ideas and tools to manage them. The real opportunity is to make superior quality videos wherever possible so that your material will “STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD”. Twitter video offers an enormous opportunity to do something a little different in 2018. By creating “bite size chunks of information” and embedding them into your tweets you will set yourself apart from most. It’s a very compelling format and well worth trying. The challenge is condensing your thoughts into 140 seconds or having the patience to edit your longer videos down into those lengths. If you do have a go at this please DM me your ideas and I would be happy to retweet them for you (@KeithKeller)

(2) Do you see any major trends that could potentially reshape the content marketing landscape?

Content marketing is getting increasingly complex and I predict we will see a lot more multimedia formats in 2018 and less of the “words only” blog ideas. There will always be people that enjoy reading the written word but as we are all so time poor, and there are more and more ideas to get your head around, videos and podcasts will become the preferred options for keeping up to date with all the latest information. Videos are already preferred by a large percentage of the population for learning new material and podcasting offers the ability to “learn on the go” which is such a fantastic value add. Overall, I see that video consumption will increase dramatically in 2018 and the written formats will decrease by a corresponding amount. Podcasts will gradually rise in popularity over time to fill the void in between but we are not at “the tipping point” for those yet. That is probably still a few years away.

Keith Keller is now well known internationally as “The Global Twitter Marketing Specialist” and he is popular speaker on the subject. His regular tweets (@KeithKeller) are testament to his passion for sharing the latest information about Twitter as well as other Social Media platforms and he certainly has an ever growing list of success stories.

Kris Degioia

Forbes Top 10 Digital Marketing Strategist

I’ve always thought video marketing would explode in the industry, at the right time, and when the right tools or the platforms where available. I’ve already seen a huge impact from just short films on Facebook. Twitter has stepped up their game by offering $500 in free video marketing (once you’ve reached a small amount in spending advertising dollars in general) this is just the beginning if you’re looking to make an impact in the world 2018 will be the time to utilize video marketing!

Marko Saric

Blogger

The video can be an incredible content format for your marketing campaigns. It makes it easier to stand out in the noise of text and most social algorithms seem to surface video content much more frequently than plain text updates or imagery. The problem is that there are tons of videos being published out there too and people don’t have too much patience. The average view time is less than 10 seconds on Facebook so your video needs not only to be useful and entertaining, it also needs to be short and to the point, and needs to be able to make sense in this new silent movie era. Most people watch auto-played video without sound on as they’re scrolling through their news feeds on mobiles. If you can achieve these elements you have a potential hit on your hands.

Marco Saric writes about content marketing, social media and blogging.

Omar Kattan

Managing Director & CSO At Sandstorm Digital FZE

With attention spans divided over more and more platforms, micro format videos will become more essential to tell a brand story. Advertisers will need to master the art of telling stories over multiple channels with different content formats and micro videos will be an essential component of this strategy.

Rachel Lindteigen

President of Etched Marketing

Video is going to play an even bigger role in marketing in 2018 than it does today. As more marketers and small business owners begin to understand the benefit of video marketing: the sheer audience size (over a billion users on YouTube), the amount of video consumed (100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook daily), and the increased engagement video gets compared to text or image (social video gets 1200% more engagement than text and image combined) they’re going to want to add it to their marketing mix or increase their production levels.

I predict an uptick in the amount of video produced overall and I think it will be a mix of semi-professional quality video and quick/easy videos. We’re seeing more interest in professional quality video equipment than can be set up in an office quickly and used to create videos that are nicer than ones shot on the phone without audio or lighting but not at the level (or expense) of professional videos.

This trend will continue into 2018, I think. Companies are finding they can invest a little in the tools to make their videos stand out from the competition and they’re beginning to understand why that matters. If they’re not providing video content, their competition is and they’re missing potential sales because 87% of marketers use video content.

Rachel Lindteigen is the President of Etched Marketing, a content & digital marketing agency based in Phoenix, AZ. She specializes in content marketing and offers marketing training programs for small business owners through Etched’s Marketing Academy.

Steve Burge

Runs http://OSTraining.com which creates training for the web’s most popular platforms

We’re seeing a lot of companies using videos to provide a mix of training and marketing. If a company provides social media services, they’re creating how-to videos and slipping their marketing into the end of the video. If a company provides WordPress hosting, they want to provide WordPress training with a smattering of ads. There’s a real demand for video marketing it is both useful and helpful.

Steve Burge runs http://OSTraining.com which creates training for the web’s most popular platforms, and partners with companies such as GoDaddy and Pantheon to create training that reaches and engages their customers.

Trend 7. Personalized videos will continue to rise

Viewers are tired of being bombarded by visual messages all over the place. If a brand or company wants to be successful, what they really need to go after is personalized custom videos that cut through the noise. This is the only way to get noticed.

Adam Franklin

Digital marketing speaker

Video marketing will continue to thrive in 2018 and video will become the most consumed type of content. Facebook Lives have refined video marketing because it’s completely removed the technical barrier for publishing videos. You can now “point and go” and share your video broadcast with literally hundreds of people instantly. We used to have to record a video, edit it, produce it and eventually publish it, and this tedious process meant that many aspiring video marketers would give up before their content every made it online.

I think we’ll see the rise of real-time videos where the host can interact live with attendees. This level of access and transparency is very appealing to marketers and viewers alike.

The best marketers will become mini media companies as they regularly host their own video shows on Facebook and YouTube.

Adam Franklin is a digital marketing speaker & author of Web Marketing That Works

Brandon Safford

Founder and Principal of Small Business Analytics of Texas

Simply put, video sales letters (VSLs) are currently the hottest thing, and far more effective than static ads. As for why, my guess is because the video allows for a more human connection, as well as nuance, so that the viewer is better able to connect with the service offered than if they simply saw words and a photo. However, this trend only appears to be for newer companies looking to get their name out there. Well-recognized brands that have already built up considerable trust in the public eye may not need it as much.

As for trends affecting the marketing landscape, I see artificial intelligence playing a progressively larger role. It is one thing for a marketer to manually choose the demographic the VSLs will be targeted toward, but another thing altogether to have the power of an AI behind predictions as to which ones are most likely to respond or convert to the sale (or signup, or whatever the goal is).

Brandon Safford is the Founder and Principal of Small Business Analytics of Texas (aka SBATX).

Brenda S. Stoltz

Founding Partner of Ariad Partners

According to Cisco, by 2020, video traffic will account for 83% of all internet traffic. With the rise of AI technologies, we will see more and more AI tech that helps deliver video content. Marketers that leverage AI will create and deliver multiple variations by persona, use case, product, etc. This will enable marketers to deliver more targeted content, get more views and better return for their video marketing spend.

Larger companies have and are adopting these technologies but we’ll see them move to the small and mid-market as they become more accessible.

Brenda S. Stoltz is a Founding Partner of Ariad Partners, which helps B2B companies improve their sales and marketing processes, technology, and results. You can tweet her at @bsstoltz.

Carlos Abler

Leader, Content Marketing Strategy at 3M

The increasing opportunity for highly tailored personalized content, AI, algorithmically-driven content display, addressable television and other and startups focusing in run-time dynamic video display, will force content creators to create video in a hyper-modular architecture, that can display dozens of hundreds of possible personalized variants for ‘the same’ video. Content creators will have to think about not just one story path and outcome for a video, but multiple story paths and outcomes. Not just one overly narrow audience per video, but a multitude of potential or even unforeseen audiences per video. Based on previous content consumption patterns and other data, do you want your TV commercial to appeal to art intensive, a sports intensive family, or both? Do you want your video to appeal to a family that agrees politically, or disagrees politically? To satirize one, the other, or both? The ‘same video’ can do this, if teams have studied the spectrum of potential audiences, and identified what component permutations will deliver the desired outcome for the business, for those many discreet segments. This environment will save a lot of great ideas from the cutting room floor due to ‘the death of average’, and bring them all to life in a world of endlessly permeating possibilities. Let’s plan to burn through a lot of storyboards.

Carlos Abler is a Leader, Content Marketing Strategy, 3M. Leveraging content as a catalyst for digital transformation, customer-experience, and stakeholder value creation, Carlos leads and supports initiatives that drive roadmaps of maturity across content programs, technologies, and human resource development for global conglomerates, small businesses, not-for-profits and NGOs.

Gregg Anderson

The founding partner of 41 Orange

We predict that state of the content marketing landscape will dramatically shift over the next two years. The big shift will come from brands making the switch from inbound marketing to account-based marketing. The internet is bloated with content that’s not personalized to individual prospects. As an agency we’ve made a big investment not only into video, but into personalized video. We no longer create content on general topics and try to appeal to the masses in the one-to-many model. Instead, we create personalized videos for each prospect that engages with our brand, a one-to-one highly personalized form of account-based marketing.

Ivana Taylor

The founder of DIYMarketers.com

I don’t see “new” trends as much as I see existing technologies such as livestreaming, temporary content, virtual reality and video email marketing being used in the skillful hands of creative influencers and experts to build engagement, conversation and community.

Both business and consumer audiences crave content that is both entertaining and educational. The great news for small business marketers who are strapped for time and money is that their audiences aren’t looking for super slick, over-the-top productions. These audiences are looking for truth, authenticity and real personality. Cinema Verite will rule. But the real challenge for small business marketers will be to hone their message points, target their audience and come up with creative and engaging content that truly connects.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Technology can help you TELL your story – but it can’t craft it for you.

Ivana Taylor is the founder of DIYMarketers.com where she simplifies small business marketing with low cost tools, tips and strategies. She is the host #BizapaloozaChat, she’s a D&B and Fast Company top Influencer, contributor to AMEX OpenForum, Book Editor for Small Business Trends and has appeared on MSNBC.

Joseph Yaacoub

Certified Digital Marketing Strategist & Trainer

Online videos are undoubtedly a big part of our daily lives & this will increase in 2018. Video marketing remains the most effective and the most powerful tool to create more visibility, build up trust, attract viewership, and more likely to go viral than any other medium available today.
Therefore, it is ‘now’ when companies should start incorporating Video Marketing in their strategic planning process for 2018. But the most essential part is to build these videos based on the 3 fundamentals:
– To inform & educate
– To entertain
– To inspire
Not to forget to customize these videos for mobile with captions to attract more silent viewers.

As content marketing becomes more successful, it’s also going to become more competitive. when it comes to “Content Marketing” in the middle east, I think the role of “Content team” will evolve & audio content will re-enter the market along with the rise of graphics and videos. Even when using all these content marketing tools, personalization of the content will remain the key to unlock any opportunity. It’s all about the audience!

Joseph Yaacoub is a Journalist, Certified Digital Marketing Strategist & Trainer. Joseph has created and led successful digital marketing, branding and PR campaigns for everyone.

Katyan Roach

Business Consultant and Social Media Strategist

Video marketing will, of course, continue to be utilized more and more. However, I see brands leaning more towards storytelling and video content that tells a compelling story, a story that evokes emotions, stirs a connection and keeps the viewer engaged, will always take the lead.

This is not so much a trend that will change over time but a tried and true strategy that continues to work, no matter the medium.

Katyan Roach is a Business Consultant and Social Media Strategist, who loves helping small & medium sized businesses wade through the sometimes overwhelming world that is Social Media Marketing. Newbies & Side hustlers also have a special place in her heart.

Mordecai Holtz

Co-Founder and Chief Digital Strategist at Blue Thread Marketing

With half of 2017 already behind us, brands are already looking to plan their business strategies for next year. This year video reached a critical point especially with Snapchat, Instagram and even Linkedin showing the importance of video marketing. As video continues to reshape the marketing landscape, these are three key elements to really drive success for future efforts.

1. Micro content: Mobile devices are clearly the future of marketing efforts. The shift to mobile has created a new concept of “micro-moments”, which are short points of engagement and interaction with content. Brands will be challenged to create countless pieces of micro-moments to guide customers along the journey and to maintain a consistent interest that will eventually stimulate the impulse to buy.

2. Data driven and Personalized: In the coming year, content in all forms will be much more data driven. Developing a marketing strategy must be focused on personalizing each customers journey. For brands, shifting towards dynamic, visually engaging, and data driven content will be the factor to their success. Data driven marketing means automating and delivering high-quality content at all times. Creating a unique customer experience must be supported by their specific preferences and interests.

3. Strong visual: Videos tend to grab the viewers attention on a much deeper level than written content. The digital narrative displayed on video allows customers to connect to a brand in a short time frame. The temptation from video is much stronger allowing for a deeper brand affinity. This means that brands need to insure that visual on-screen elements are top notch to really drive the ROI.

Mordecai Holtz is a Co-Founder and Chief Digital Strategist at Blue Thread Marketing.

Nick Lucs

Digital marketing specialist

I believe that videos will become more personal. For example, a company could announce updates through a Facebook Live video so it’s authentic, personable, and the product marketers can answers questions on demand through the comment sections.

Nick Lucs is a digital marketing specialist focusing on social media and content marketing. He is the owner of Social Nickel.

Ruth Carter, Esq.

Licensed attorney in Arizona

I don’t know if this is going to happen in video marketing or medium of content marketing, but given that MediaRadar’s research shows that 37% of publishers don’t comply with the FTC rules for native advertising, I predict the FTC is going to make an example of someone. And with fines up to $16K per violation, it’s going to be a costly mistake.

Ruth Carter, Esq. is a licensed attorney in Arizona who focuses on intellectual property, business contracts, and social media law. She’s the author of three best-selling books on the legalities of guerrilla marketing and social media, including The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed.

Sam Hurley

Founder of the OPTIM-EYEZ platform

Key message: Those wishing to beat the competition (or at very least, compete) — simply MUST begin investing in video ASAP.

A well-prepared combination of video, audio and written content is a solid overall marketing strategy as we head into 2018.

The buzz surrounding video is very real and imperative to add to your marketing mix — yet (depending on industry), it’s important not to become overwhelmed by the stats and predictions.

Deploying an ideal blend of video and surrounding content is key for visibility, attention and conversion.

Video should be seen as the final piece of your marketing jigsaw — the link that forges lasting human connection — a connection that equals sales.

Written content still has its place in terms of wider customer expectations, and words are at the very core of ‘the big one’: Google. The written word won’t be vanishing anytime soon.

We must also occasionally step out of our marketing bubble and realize many businesses aren’t up-to-date…

There is what appears to be a HUGE chasm between the amount of businesses that are ultra-modern and those that are not even using basic martech like automation.

2016 research suggests 50% of small U.S.-based businesses are still run without a website, suggesting a sizeable lack of knowledge with regards to online marketing.(Video probably won’t be on their agenda anytime soon!)

However: Those wishing to beat the competition (or at very least, compete) — simply MUST begin investing in video ASAP. The nation is increasingly attracted to video as time goes by — especially the younger generations. Generation Z has an attention span of only 8 seconds…a huge difference between that of Millenials, at a whopping 12 seconds!

We know video is awesome and compelling, of course — but resource is a common challenge. 43% of marketers said they’d create more video content if there were no obstacles like time and budget. So, this is clearly a problem.

Top-notch video content is difficult to achieve, unless the right know-how and tech is applied. I see the same issue becoming more prevalent in future years as pressure mounts to cater for the demanding expectations of potential (and existing) customers.

Here are 5 key video marketing trends to watch out for:

Trend #1: Live Video Taking Even Greater Hold. Facebook is pioneering this space, and the rest will follow…

I believe younger-generation consumers will soon expect customer service to be live in this way. Brands will need to adapt — smaller businesses may struggle.

The following 4 trends will be heavily influenced, improved and automated with the rise of Artificial Intelligence.

Still relatively lesser-known, this status will change in years to come.

The demand for personalization is ever-present — 100% personalized video is the next frontier. Tech vendors will become insanely clever at utilizing mass amounts of data with a view to providing unique video experiences.

Think: Online and offline touchpoints, particularly those of ecommerce brands that have physical store locations.

Personalized shopping experiences of this kind are now achievable by harmonizing video content with in-store tech (devices that sync your physical and virtual shopping basket, virtually dress you and will soon be able to 3D-print tailored products — on the spot!)

That said…

Trend #4: Immersive Video Continues To Flourish.

A wholly-personalized AND immersive experience is a slick concept. Audiences want to feel closer to brands than ever before. The opportunity in terms of storytelling is colossal. Larger organizations have already seen great success using 360-degree video ads.Venturing further into augmented reality; it’s a deep rabbit hole!

I believe value will soon begin to meet innovation in this area, in terms of both sales and customer benefit. AR and VR are quite ‘buzzwordy’ terms for marketers — but not to be sniffed at.

Trend #5: Video Production + Analytics = Big Business.

There’s no point in creating and deploying quality video if you can’t measure it.

Aside from the top brands taking center stage, look out for heaps of new vendors entering the game.

The uptake in video marketing will be met with a similar surge of startups specializing in video metrics and highly-targeted video services.

Sam Hurley is a lateral-thinking digital marketer holding experience in both agency and client-side settings. He is Founder of the OPTIM-EYEZ platform. Sam has achieved success for SMEs and popular global brands through to blue chip organizations while being ranked as the world’s #1 digital influencer by Webinale, #2 most influential digital marketer by Onalytica and one of the top 3 content marketing influencers by ScribbleLive.

Shira Abel

CEO of Hunter & Bard

As video becomes easier and easier to produce more personalized video, connecting the seller to the customer, will be made. There will also be more people promoting themselves through video. YouTube is the second largest search engine and it can be a powerful tool to promote a brand or person.

Trend 8. Video will continue to be a part of a broader content marketing strategy

Despite the fact that video is a powerful marketing instrument, we should remember that it is still a part of the bigger content marketing strategy. Along with other instruments, it helps SEO, increases engagement, and drives business.

Andy Crestodina

Co-founder and the Strategic Director of Orbit Media

More, bigger and better video is the future of marketing, but I predict that some brands will go a bit too far with their video strategies. Companies that go video only will see a drop in search traffic as they move away from search friendly text.

Video is part of a balance of formats. The most effective content marketing programs will produce hybrid pages, with video on top and detailed articles below. That’s a winning strategy for search, social, trust and conversion.

Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and the Strategic Director of Orbit Media, an award-winning 38-person web design company in Chicago.

Pratik Dholakiya

Founder of The 20 Media

Video marketing has felt like early 2000s SEO for a very long time in that it has been very low on competition. The ubiquity of cameras is changing that, and viewers now expect more professional production quality than ever before.

Video marketing will reach critical mass in 2018 and the competition will reach levels not yet seen. Viewers are subscribing to so many video channels that they are not seeing everything. It will be more important than ever to transition video marketing efforts towards list building efforts and to really blow them away with the usefulness of our videos.

We will need to stop thinking about videos like “content” and start thinking about them more like products, and we will need to be focused on a video’s place in the sales funnel more rigorously than in the past.

Pratik Dholakiya is the founder of The 20 Media, an SEO and content marketing agency.

Christoph Trappe

Business advisor

I actually thought 2017 was the year of video. 🙂 Well, maybe not quite! Video will become more and more important in your content marketing mix, but what will be more important is how it’s packaged for the audience and accessible for different audiences. For example:

Can I view it on several networks?
Is there a transcript that I can read when I can’t watch with sound! Or better, is there a caption?

Also, the quality and relevance will be more important than ever. That includes the production value as well as the relevance factor. Audiences expect video to look and sound good but also be highly relevant and not waste their time!

Konrad Sanders

The CEO and Content Strategist at The Creative Copywriter

I’m sure it comes as no surprise to anyone reading or contributing to this article that video is becoming an increasingly big deal. It’s just a more gripping form of content. It engages more of our senses and we form a deeper connection with it. So I’m pretty sure this pattern will continue in the this upwards direction throughout 2018. And I say: bring it on!

In terms of game-changing trends. Who knows? Perhaps more companies will understand the value of repurposing video content; e.g. chopping up longer videos into very short GIF-like vids that can be sprinkled across their social channels. Perhaps there will be more of a shift towards personalisation, e.g. different, more tailored and personal versions of videos shown to different buyer personas or prospects at different stages of the sales funnel. Perhaps Google will learn to ‘read’ video content in the way it reads written content and so spoken keyword phrases will start to play a huge role in future SEO. Perhaps there will be a rise in silent Charlie Chaplin-style short videos as we increasingly watch them on our smartphones at work and on public transport, without wanting to play sound. Perhaps more B2B companies will pull the stick out of their behinds and start injecting actual creativity and storytelling into their video content.

I don’t know. But video will certainly play a massive role in content marketing in 2018. And rightfully so.

Konrad Sanders is the CEO and Content Strategist at The Creative Copywriter, and has a pretty darn creative noggin on his shoulders. His gang of word-slingin’ cowboys know how to compel, convince and convert customers with words.

Mike Kawula

The CEO of Social Quant

Video consumption as a percentage of the worlds internet traffic continues to increase year-over-year and there are no signs of that decreasing, especially as we see technology getting better with VR and 360-Degree video.

Video will boost business’s conversions, increase brand trust and entrepreneurs will definitely see greater ROI for their business.

Look at how fast Snapchat, Facebook Live and recently, Instagram Stories are growing.

COO of Twitter, Anthony Noto, is looking to turnaround Twitter by making it into a media company that has 24-hours a day live video where people can discuss and watch, breaking news. Personally, I’m loving watching Bloomberg LIVE on Twitter each morning and having great conversations.

If you’re unsure how to use video in your business, check-out the recent post by Ana Hoffman on Repurposing Content and consider taking some of your existing content or advertisements, and turning them into video.

Mike Kawula is the CEO of Social Quant, Co-Founder of DinnerTable MBA and a Top 100 Digital Marketing Influencer.

Patti Minglin

The founder/CEO of Go Girl Communications

If it isn’t already a part of your content marketing strategy, video will definitely be a part of it in 2018. Consumers will almost expect your content to have a video element whether that is a “how to” on YouTube or a quick Facebook Live for an event. Because video will be a more important part of the overall content plan, you will see brands creating more real strategies behind their videos with a focus on WHY are we doing this instead of just WHAT are we doing.

Patti Minglin is the founder/CEO of Go Girl Communications, a content marketing company specializing in helping brands build conversations with women and moms. A self-proclaimed “accidental entrepreneur,” Patti launched Go Girl Communications in 2011 with the belief that strong content and authentic engagement build relationships, not just customers.

Veronica Stoddart

Award-winning editor and content consultant

Research points to the undeniable value of video content in leading to higher engagement than all-text content and to playing a growing role in social media marketing. In fact, a growing consensus sees video as the future of content marketing, bringing the best return on investment and increasing online conversion rates by up to 80 percent. Some reports even suggest video will account for 80 percent of all Web traffic by 2019.

Still, as content marketing evolves, the focus on distribution will continue to grow, including such trends as: 1) influencer marketing using influencers to reach targeted audiences via their extensive social media followings; 2) content syndication, or amplification, via third-party platforms that place content (whether video or text) on media sites to drive traffic to a brand’s website; and 3) recycling content to deliver the right piece, to the right audience, in the right channel or platform, at the right time.

Veronica Stoddart is an award-winning editor and content consultant; the former travel editor of USA TODAY. She provides content marketing solutions for travel clients via her consultancy, VS Content Strategies, and as Chief Content Officer for Percepture, a marketing communications agency.

Trend 9. Live video will take a more important place in content marketing

Archana Dhankar

Head of the Marketing Department at Aspire

Online video will undoubtedly become a big part of our daily lives. Think about the last video you watched. Why you watched it, and what you gained from watching it. Online video marketing will be about 3 fundamental principles to inform, to entertain and to inspire.

Archana Dhankar is Marketing Expert with over 12 years of experience currently living in the UK, heading the Marketing Department at Aspire. She has helped various start-up brands in their initial journey and throughout her career, she has launched go-to-market initiatives and led marketing strategies for award-winning, high-growth companies.

Janice Wald

An author, a freelance writer, a blogger, and a blogging coach

Live Video Streaming sites will become a greater part of marketing strategy.

Since production of content is moving toward video, marketers should use Facebook Live and other live video streaming sites.

Since consumers prefer live video to recorded video, I see live video services such as Facebook Live surpassing recorded video sites like YouTube in popularity among marketers.

At the end of the video, marketers can put their call to action: the link they want their target consumers to click to get on their mailing list.

On Facebook, you can pay to sponsor these videos so they appear in the feed of interested customers.

Janice Wald is an author, a freelance writer, a blogger, and a blogging coach. At MostlyBlogging.com, she shares tips for bloggers and marketers. Her blog was nominated for the 2017 Most Informative Blog Award at the London Blogger’s Bash. She published AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO BUILDING A SUCCESSFUL BLOG.

Priit Kallas

The founder of Dreamgrow.com

The majority of consumers prefer video content to reading. Consumer preference will lead to video explosion in content marketing. Video will become more important for converting and lead generation. A lot of potential buyers don’t want to talk to salespeople. This is where video can influence sales in later stages.

Videos will also play a bigger part in personal sales and support. First, and the more scalable, option is to use pre-recorded clips with sales or support people. The second option is to record short messages for specific needs so that (potential) customers can watch them at a convenient time. The popularity of video also means that more content at the top of the funnel has to be in video format. In B2C it’s almost obvious. But B2B-people are people, too. Video content is more likely to keep the audience in the comfort zone. They will not engage in system 2 thinking. System 1, the autopilot mental state, should lead to less critical thinking, less friction, and more conversions.

The acceptance of good enough production quality will lead to massive amount of live video content created ad-hoc on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Facebook Live videos, webinar recordings, and other video material with good enough production quality will work as long as the content itself is engaging.

Live video streams can become an important part of the video content. In its original live format and promoting the recorded material after the event. Bring live events to their audience, hold a live Q&A session, interviews with influencers help to engage and build brand awareness. Brands will start to think strategically about the video. How different video formats and channels can support each other? How to create cornerstone video content that can be atomized, expanded, and combined with other content formats? Finding ways to get the most mileage from their videos.

Testing in video marketing. There are no set rules of thumb. When brands are figuring out their approach to video a lot of experimenting needs to take place. Long vs. short versions in different channels. Animation, talking heads, actors, CGI. How to present introductions, hooks, and calls-to-action in the video.

Videos need to be optimized for specific platforms and different use cases. For example, sometimes we need to look at videos without sound. Subtitles or on-screen text that convey the message when there’s no sound. Research from TV ads shows better message recall when the ad has same language subtitles. Storytelling will be more important than ever. People can read through a list of facts in an article, but in video format, you will lose your audience if there’s no story. The flow of the presentation and emotional connection to the viewer are going to make or break a video.

Video=Youtube. Facebook will try to take video leadership from Youtube. Youtube is the go-to place for independent content creators and brands to build their following. Facebook needs to find a way to bring big Youtube stars to its platform.

The ROI of video marketing. Top of the funnel video content can be hard to measure, but more videos will be used in the sales process closer to the actual conversion. Video will speed up sales cycles as prospects think less and act sooner.

Priit Kallas is the founder of Dreamgrow.com, a social media and content marketing company. With 20+ years marketing experience he is helping companies to get results in digital marketing. Priit is the organizer of DigitalEliteCamp.com, a leading traffic and conversion event.

Tereza Litsa

Content Marketing Manager for Hubbub Fundraising

Video marketing is expected to become an even bigger trend in 2018 and it’s no surprise that more brands start using it. The rise of video content in social media has made it easier to create videos, which means that the budget or the technical requirements are not the problem anymore.

I believe that live video is expected to be a big trend, as more social platforms embrace it. Publishers can increase real-time engagement with their audience, while it can also encourage more people to help brands with user-generated content.

Moreover, video advertising will be another big trend to look out, as it can be both appealing and effective.

Tereza Litsa is a Content Marketing Manager for Hubbub Fundraising and is passionate about content writing and social media. * * *